


a Memo on the Care of your Slightly Traumatized NK900

by cyndrat



Series: Detroit: Reverse Roles [8]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Android Gavin Reed, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Gavin blames himself, Gen, Hugs, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Nines blames himself, Nines continues the Anderson bros tradition of bad self-preservation, Role Reversal, Swearing, as in Gavin will not be surprised if he has to take a sick day very soon, continuation of Gavin's journey to Emotion and Humanness and stuff, continuing emotional healing, in a minor way, like really really minor - Freeform, not quite getting together, or something like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 20:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16878516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndrat/pseuds/cyndrat
Summary: Everyone is (supposedly) (mostly) recovered from the disastrous yet successful raid several weeks ago.Gavin follows directions and is generally far more pleasant to work with, if a little subdued.Nines is positive that 'submissive' is one word that no one shouldeverbe able to apply tohisthe android.Turns out they're both bottling up some self-blame.





	a Memo on the Care of your Slightly Traumatized NK900

**Author's Note:**

> based (in a general sense) on various pieces of artwork from various artists depicting Gavin and Nines hugging  
> set a couple weeks after "just LISTEN"

Nines had convinced Fowler to let him come back to desk duty a couple days early.

He doesn’t mind the limited work, not really. They’ve all taken a turn to be stuck on paperwork and in-station tasks, because eventually everyone he can think of has been hurt, or sick, and needs recovery time without being locked out of their job.

He doesn’t mind the desk work. What he does mind is doing the safe work on the computer, then sending Ben and Chris and Connor and Hank and Gavin out to do the street work that, since the Android Revolution, has had a tendency to be a fair bit more dangerous than it was before. And because he’s still recovering and Gavin is CyberLife’s Most Advanced Prototype™, the android doesn’t have to take any temporary partners with him on the basic cases.

Which means Gavin is out investigating and pursuing criminals on his own.

Which isn’t a problem in and of itself, but he’s a little concerned.

Because his android - fuck, no, not his android ~~he doesn’t deserve to call Gavin his~~  - his WORK PARTNER who happens to be an android is clearly not okay. Something has messed up his partner, has subdued his personality and his interactions with their co-workers, and Nines is not a fan.

Well, he is, a little bit, if only because it means that Gavin isn’t pushing back against every decision or instruction Nines utters. But that isn’t nearly enough to say that he prefers this version of the android. Any version of Gavin that could possibly be called ‘submissive’ just feels inherently wrong.

And he worries that it’s his fault, that something he’d said or done the night of their disastrous raid had caused this.

And he knows that the NK androids are designed to be adaptable, that their system programs literally rewrite social protocol prompts and catalogue conclusions to encourage reactions that are likely to be received better as they learn. And so he worries that if he doesn’t deal with whatever’s sparked the change in his android soon enough, Gavin is going to be cooperative and submissive to the point of being a pushover.

And that’s just wrong.

So, in the afternoon of his second day back to work, he starts planning.

The plan eventually goes like this: he’s going to find ~~his~~  the android, and he’s going to request that they talk. He’s sort of hoping Gavin will curse at him and give him some shitty excuse that’s more sass than actual excuse. Then Nines will roll his eyes and grab the android’s shoulder because they both know the excuse doesn’t mean anything, and then they’ll talk, and he’ll figure out exactly what’s causing his android to act strangely.

And then he will fix it.

Nines looks up from his computer terminal, glancing over the bullpen.

Connor and Hank are still out, desks cleared for the night, and they probably won’t be back in before eight, if they come back to the station at all tonight. Chris is already gone home, and the few officers that are on the night shift are present, making it quieter and emptier than Nines had realized. He looks to the desk across from his- It’s cleared of the day’s work, just like Hank’s.

Wait. Gavin was back in about forty-five minutes ago, he wouldn’t have had a good reason to head back out on the streets. But it seems like the android’s been working off of reasons and leads that Nines usually wouldn’t allow to lead the investigation...

Nines stands quickly and strides towards the lobby. He leans out far enough to see the night receptionist and waves briefly at her. “Hey, Sarah. Did Gavin go back into the field?”

The girl blinks at him. “Reed? He’s clocked out, gone home.”

“What?” Nines was so fucking close! He’s ready, he knows exactly what he wants and needs to say - and he doesn’t want to put it off. He’s ready to toss on his coat and run if he has to. “When?”

“Just a minute ago,” she tells him with a shrug.

Alright, so he maybe doesn’t have to run. But if he doesn’t leave now, he’s out of luck because he doesn’t actually remember where the android’s apartment building is.

* * *

Gavin hasn’t been… avoiding his partner, technically. He interacts with Nines when it’s reasonable to do so considering the other is confined to desk duty, and he’s grabbed several cups of coffee, made just the way Nines likes it and eventually sneaking in decaf because the man’s been back to work for two days (two!) and both days he’s drank up to his advised caffeine limit and right past it without batting an eye, and Gavin has taken it upon himself to enforce adherence to _that_ medical recommendation at least.

He just feels like he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act around Nines. He could have gotten the man killed. Actually, he’s run reconstructions of that night and adjusted their positionings an inch this way and that way- and it’s amazing they made it out with as few injuries as they did. It wouldn’t have taken a difference of much and they’d both be dead right about now. Or, in his case, wiped and sold off somewhere on the black market if they didn’t hit him anywhere too vital.

It’s like he knows something should change, that _he_ should change to ensure a situation never goes downhill like that again, but he hasn’t quite figured out how to change and still be him.

_“Gavin!”_

He startles to a stop at the call, feet stalling in the snow without his express intent to do so as his processor stutters, thoughts scattered. He turns, another unpremeditated movement, and stares wide-eyed at his partner, who he certainly did not expect. Nines is slogging through the snow towards him, moving much faster than advisable considering his still healing injuries.

And he called him…

“Gavin, hey, wait,” Nines calls when there remains several yards between them. It’s as if he still expects Gavin to bolt.

But - again - _that’s his name._ His _name_ , the first one he’d really properly chosen for himself. And the one he hadn’t really expected to hear again outta that mouth aside from those first few visits in the hospital. The man had fallen back to the usual ‘Reed’ or ‘Nin’undred’ pretty quick, as if Nines Anderson ever calling him ‘Gavin’ was a faint vestige of a memory rapidly lost to the heavy haze of drugs and post-emergency-surgery exhaustion.

“I’m-” Gavin croaks. He frowns momentarily and resets his vocal module. “I ain’t goin anywhere, so take your time, will ya?” Nines scoffs, loud and strong enough to be easily heard by the android. “Seriously, I don’t want to hafta drag your ass to the emergency room tonight, alright?” Fuck, he’s gone even softer than he thought. He fucking cares about his stupid human. An old meme North has showed him several times, in different variations, comes to mind. _‘I didn’t understand why people care so much about their dumb dogs until I got a dumb dog myself. I’ve only had Arlo for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.’_

He cares way too goddamn much, because he’s got a sinking feeling that second sentence is way too true right this moment. And they’re outside. The ‘room’ is the world.

And somehow that feels right.

Nines slows down a little, but he’s still almost tripping in the deep snow.

Why did the weather have to pick this week to give Detroit the heaviest snowfall it’s seen in February in decades anyways? This is the fifth time the thick snow has posed a danger to his partner in the past three days - not that he’s counting, exactly. Fuck, okay, yes he’s counting.

It’s just that Nines doesn’t seem to notice those little things. When there’s any sort of big official danger, his partner is completely on top of the situation, assessing what’s going on and keeping track of every single threat. When there isn’t anything like that, he just… doesn’t seem to even care that he could slip on ice or on slushy snow, or catch a cold because he’s chasing after Gavin outside with his coat wide open and no scarf, hat, or gloves on.

Anyways, Nines doesn’t notice those things - so Gavin does it for him, keeps track of the little mundane hazards and he _tries_ to limit the possibility of them affecting his partner.

But humans don’t seem to get it, or at least most of the ones at the station don’t seem to, both Andersons trotting along and leading from the front of that line.

“What the fuck was so important you gotta come traipsing after me barely half-dressed for the weather, huh dipshit?” At his words, Nines appears to slow a bit more, reassured he’s gonna stick around for a conversation or something. “I know you own, like, a couple fuckin dozen scarves, why aren’t you wearing one of em?”

The man looks perhaps a little sheepish. “I just- I wanted to talk to you.”

“And you couldn’t wait til the morning? I ain’t got plans to ditch work tomorrow, y’know.” Gavin waits just a moment, waits until Nines comes to a stop a few steps away. “And what did happen to your fuckin scarf, huh? I saw you wearing a monstrous lookin green thing when you came in this morning.”

Nines rolls his eyes and shifts his feet a little. He isn’t wearing proper tall winter boots to go slogging through snow this deep, either. “You’re still on regular duty, and I’m confined to a desk for the next few weeks. There’s no promise that you’ll be in the station at all, Fowler will try to throw you cases left and right because you usually get through them quickly.” Gavin offers a small shrug. That’s not wrong.

“But if you need me, you gotta know that I’ll be there. Right?” That… wasn’t exactly what he’d meant to say.

That apparently wasn’t the right thing to say, either, because Nines looks away quickly, hunching in on himself. Eyes widening, Gavin steps forward, opening his mouth to say- something, to say something that would make right whatever he’d just triggered, but his partner moves first, closing the distance between them and wrapping strong arms across Gavin’s shoulders.

He’s… frozen, for a moment, his own arms half raised as if to defend himself or something. It feels like some component reboots - like his stupid brain, ~~maybe~~ probably - and he fixes his reaction, setting his arms around Nines’ waist.

“I’m sorry,” Nines says, quickly and quietly, but Gavin’s audio processors have no difficulty picking up the words. “Something’s happened to you, there’s clearly something bothering you that’s making you change your behaviour.”

“Oh.” Was it that obvious? Has he really been acting so different that his partner noticed? “I guess I just… I’ve been thinking about that night, and uh… I just figure that, maybe I should make it easier on you all to work with me-”

“Oh my god,” Nines mumbles. “Oh my- fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that- I didn’t mean it like that…” He inhales and exhales, the sound wavery, and he pulls Gavin a little tighter. “I don’t want you to go all submissive and follow orders all the time. That’s just- It isn’t you. Okay?”

“Okay, but- Anderson,” Gavin says, knowing he’s frowning. “You didn’t do a damn thing wrong that night.”

“Fuck, but I did, Gavin, I did… I - I gave you an order and, and I thought it was the best option, the best way to keep you safe, but-” He takes a quick breath. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to disobey if I worded it that way, I fucking _knew_ that, and I used that knowledge to manipulate you. But you, Gavin Reed, you stupid, stubborn android, you found a way around it, and…” Nines’ shoulders rise a bit and his chin slips a little farther down to land on Gavin’s shoulder. “You came back for me. You called for backup, you let yourself release the steering wheel and be a team player for my sake, and you helped get me out of there.”

Gavin feels his breathing hitch at the intense sincerity coming through his partner’s words. _My fault,_ he mouths, as if in opposition to the vague praise getting spewed in his direction. But no sound is permitted out. Because actually saying it would take away from the thanks his human is trying to convey, and the metaphorical olive branch that’s being offered. Hank already knows exactly the guilt that’s gonna be on his shoulders for a while, and he’s sure Nines knows - on some level of understanding at least - that most of the blame for how disastrously their little raid had gone belongs to Gavin.

He just hadn’t considered that _Nines_ feels at fault for any of that night.

“Hey,” he mutters, giving his partner a careful squeeze. “Hey uh, we both messed up. Alright? I don’t wanna hear anything more outta you about that. Go moan to your brother if you got to, but we both know well what happened that night. And I- I ain’t gonna follow every stupid order you throw out just cause it’s an order. I don’t wanna be a goddamn pushover any more than you want me to. I just- I know I gotta be better than I used to be, because I can’t go putting the best partner I’ve had in danger just cause I wanna be in charge for no good fuckin reason. Alright? So, yeah. What happened, happened.”

Nines lets out a heavy breath and leans a little more of his weight on Gavin. “Yeah, okay,” he says quietly, pressing a palm flat against the android’s back, finally relaxing his clenched hands.

Now that they’ve cleared that up, Gavin abruptly realizes that he was kinda tense too, the lines of his body ready to spring into motion. He dismisses the threat assessment program that’s been telling him to near continually scan the area while Nines is basically compromised, and that frees up more processing space than expected.

And then he starts noticing… things. _Feelings_ . He recognizes surprise and the guilt that’s been hanging over him intermittently over the past few weeks, and a sort of relief at the ‘ _thanks’_ Nines hasn’t outright said but that he could hear begging to be read between the man’s words. There’s a lightness to everything too, a warmth and peace that reminds him of that fuckin sunrise of a smile Nines had flashed at him that first afternoon in the hospital.

He kinda wonders if Nines is smiling now, if he’s ever gonna get that soft, beautiful full face smile aimed his way ever again or if it’ll only ever exist in the future in his memory banks-

Fuck. He’d like to stop having quite so many feelings all at once now, thanks, and stop thinking stuff like that, too. Even though he kinda wants to see that smile. No, because- _definitely because_ he wants that smile enough to try to prompt it all on his own without the assistance of hospital drugs, that is a very convincing reason why he should stop feeling and thinking and trying to manage all the fluffy shit goin on in his mind.

Gavin wonders if emitting the high pitched whine that his poor processor wants to would be received badly. Probably.

There’s just- he’s very suddenly aware that there’s too much going on right now, even though there’s just one simple little hug going on. Unexpected affection back while Nines was in the hospital was just that - unexpected - but it was somewhat understandable that the man would have reached out for someone solid and real in the state he was in. This - _this_ \- is weird, because… because Gavin honestly can’t think of a single plausible reason that Nines would want to keep hugging him.

It’s a good thing they’re outside, that Gavin is breathing in the cool air and feeling the chilling breeze carry tiny bits of frozen water against his face, because he might be overheating a bit otherwise. Just a little.

His stupid human is a danger to both of their health.

Nines leans back a little, as if to pull away, but Gavin finds himself clutching at the back of the man’s coat, trapping him in place. His partner huffs, the sound amused and contented all at once. Gavin forces his hands to let go after soaking up a few more milliseconds of the touch, carefully encoding those additional milliseconds and saving them to the folder he has just for his human, then saving them to general memory again, doubling up his records of the experience.

It’s _nice_ , okay? So far he has very little memory data of unprompted, willing, positive physical touch. And he likes it. rA9 save him, he likes it.

But he lets go. He lets go of Nines’ coat and shuffles a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets and forming fists to keep them there and stop him from doing somethin stupid like grab Nines again.

“You okay?” Nines asks, a frown just barely touching on to his face - drawing his eyebrows together a little and straightening out the curve of his mouth.

“I-I-” Gavin says, and finds his mouth stalling out before the reassurance gets all the way through his lips. “I’m f-fine.”

That frown expands and deepens, eyes sharpening where they’re focused on Gavin’s temple- on his LED. He lifts his fingers to cover it, feeling the heat it’s giving off that is probably visible in the cold temperature out here. He’s a little more than a bit too hot, circulation system whirring madly to reduce internal temperatures back to the optimal range - but he is functional. And he’s…

**|Happy|**

He almost deletes the conclusion right away. It just- It doesn’t-

Gavin huffs a laugh, dropping his hand from his LED and rejecting the urge to trigger the program that would hide it. Yeah, okay. He’s happy - here, outside in the greenspace behind the station, standing in ten-point-three inches of new snow, his partner in arms’ reach and looking at him worriedly like _Gavin_ matters more than whatever detrimental effect the long day and the cold is going to have on a still-recovering human body.

“I’m good,” he says, almost smiling. He can hear a lighter tone than usual in his voice. Nines’ expression has morphed into confused relief. “Seriously. All systems functional - just fuckin surprised by a random thought.”

Nines nods slowly, as if he doesn’t quite believe it. The man whips a hand up without any form of notice, and Gavin’s threat assessment offers a half-assed warning about the rapidly approaching limb, but Nines just curls his fingers around the back of Gavin’s neck to check his temperature at the best accessible spot. “You’re warm,” he announces, like that’s some sorta newsflash. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Gavin laughs, ducking his chin down a little and flicking his gaze up through his lashes as per a series of random prompts. “Yeah dipshit, _I’m_ alright. You though… You gotta fuckin take it slow still. If you keel over on your desk, Lieutenant’ll be after _my_ head. No more than a half day tomorrow.” Nines huffs and he pulls his hand away, but the corners of his mouth turn up. “I mean it,” Gavin says, fighting a smile of his own. _Keep it together until you turn around,_ he tells himself. “I better not see you before 10am, alright Anderson?”

“Yeah Reed, whatever,” comes the response. He’s pretty sure his partner will listen though, because a full shift was way too long and that was obvious to almost everyone. Gavin will have plenty of support if he has to order Nines home early.

He turns on his heel, shoving his hands back into his pockets as he starts to walk away. A moment later, the sound of movement and of boots crunching down on snow is audible behind him and Gavin finally allows himself to smile, now that no one can see.

He’s in deep, and he cares too much, but hey - maybe that’s okay.

_//maybe that’s not a bad thing//_

**Author's Note:**

> _next up: a case that goes disastrously off the rails wherein it is Nines' turn to realize he's developed feelings_   
>  _(also angst. soo much angst comin up, and not much comfort tbh.)_   
>  _sorry not sorry??_


End file.
